A wafer is a thin slice of semiconductor material, such as a silicon crystal, used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and other microelectronics and micro devices. The wafer serves as the substrate for integrated circuits built in and over the wafer. In order to fabricate the integrated circuits, the wafer undergoes many micro fabrication process steps such as doping or ion implantation, etching, deposition of various materials, and photolithographic patterning. Once the integrated circuits are formed, individual microcircuits are separated (diced) and packaged to form a product.
In many instances, though, packaging includes integrated circuits of different technologies. These different technologies are formed on different wafers, including different sized wafers. In some complex processes, for example, integrated circuits can be formed on a 200 mm wafer; whereas, in other complex processes, for example, integrated circuits require formation on a 150 mm wafer. In certain technology fabrication processes, though, it may be necessary to resize the 200 mm wafer to a 150 mm wafer for further processing. This is usually performed by a laser; however, such resizing is known to expose wiring layers at an edge of the resized wafer, resulting in complications, and further processing that is both time consuming and prone to low yields.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.